Over the past few decades humans have grasped a larger understanding of their environment and the effects they have on it. Despite this, activities such as mountaintop removal still occur. Mountaintop removal not only harms the environment but also people as well. The process of mountaintop removal has negative effects on communities, ruins water systems, and destroys the natural environment.
To understand the effects of mountaintop removal it is important to know the actions that lead to them. Beginning in the 1970’s a new form of coal mining, mountaintop removal, was invented. The first step in mountaintop removal is the clearing of any vegetation and top soil. The trees that are uprooted in this process are burned or dropped into valleys instead of being turned into lumber or paper (“Learn More” 2). Explosives are then used to blow up large amounts of rock. At times almost 800 feet of rock can be blown off of a mountain (“What Is” 1). The coal is removed from the mountain with the use of a $100,000,000 machine called a dragline (“Learn More” 2-3). Draglines can be as tall as twenty stories and can reach weights of eight million pounds. As the exposed coal is removed the overburden is dumped into nearby valleys. Millions of tons can be dumped from a single mining operation (“What Is” 1). Water is then used to treat the removed coal. Water left over from the coal treatment is called coal slurry and storage for this toxic byproduct is often confinements made from mining debris. Coal slurry is a mixture of water, clay, and coal dust. It can also contain toxic substances such as lead, copper, arsenic mercury, and chromium though (“Learn More” 3). Protocols for the reclamation of mined areas include the revegitation of the surround...
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... Sandy sludge breach was labeled, “The biggest environmental disaster ever east of the Mississippi” (“Learn More” 4). The mining not only is destroying new areas but also areas that were supposedly restored. Restored areas still showed large bulk density, low organic composition, and low amount of nutrients. Many mined areas had miniscule amounts of tree regrowth and still showed a much smaller capacity of carbon storage (Palmer 2).
Mountaintop removal is something that is happening every day. Though some people might not know of its significance, people living in and around the areas it affects are suffering because of it. Mountaintop removal has a negative effect on communities, it ruins water systems, and it destroys the natural land people live on. All of these reasons should be enough to bring about the end of this environmentally and morally wrong practice.
Throughout this mining process a byproduct is created called chat. The chat is leftover rock and waste from mining that did not contained the desired materials. The chat was left on the site because the Bureau of Indian Affairs thought it could be of value to the Quapaw tribe (1). This chat contained high levels of toxic lead and other harmful chemicals. It is estimated that there are 75 Million tons (150 billion pounds) of chat piles remaining exposed to the environment as well as numerous flotation ponds that haven’t been taken into account (4).
We need to preserve natural resources, like water, trees, and headwaters in the Oak Ridges Moraine because they are vital to our everyday living.
Removal of the mountaintops causes environmental impacts from blasting. The blasting has caused rocks to be deposited into valleys on the hillsides, burying almost 2,000 miles of streams which feed the Mississippi River. Slurry, the residue which is used to clean the coal can wash into groundwater and may contain arsenic, lead, manganese, iron, sodium, strontium, and sulfate. A recent research study is beginning to link these environmental impacts to the grave health concerns in the Appalachian communities. During most of the Mountaintop removal mining’s history coal industries have been able to obtain permits easily to operate, but once under the Obama administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) those permits now take more time to obtain. The permit process requires all applications to be reviewed before being given out to coal
Mountain Top Removal is an American tragedy, the process in which mining companies remove forests and topsoil then explode the mountain apart level by level to get to coal layer. It is estimated that the explosives are equivalent of the Hiroshima bomb. A lot of the mining waste is discarded into valleys and streams; the water runoff is high in silt, ion, and sulfur compounds, which in turn pollute water downstream. Even with chemical treatments, vegetation has a hard time growing on the infertile and highly acidic soil. Mountain top removal occurs in eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, southwest Virginia, and east Tennessee. Virtually 1.2 million acres of land has been surface mined and more than 500 mountains have been ruined by mountaintop removal mining.
There is no such thing as just changing something from one part and not having its effects distribute throughout the entire ecosystem. As an ecosystem continues changing and evolving, so will the organisms living around or in it. We must adapt to the environment or we will become extinct, unable to adapt into the rapidly changing environment we live in. Althout human impact on an environment may benefit us, it can also be harmful to nature. By taking care of what we do to the environment, we can prevent future negative changes in the environment and preserve earth’s natural state.
The Mountaintop is a unique one act play based on Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s last night before he was assassinated. The entire play takes place in a single setting, room 306 of the Lorraine Motel. The production brings an interesting perspective into play by introducing a female supporting act that at first seemed to represent one of King’s infamous mistresses, but turned out to be an angel who was sent to take King up to heaven. The play covers many aspects of King’s life and attempts to show him on a more personal level. The main theme of the play seemed to be based around humanizing King, showing elements of his life many people didn’t know about. Overall the play had good composition, many historical references, and quality acting.
Deforestation is fast becoming one of the world’s worst environmental/geographical occurring disasters known to mankind, and is due to humankind’s greed, ignorance and carelessness when considering the future of our environment.
Coal has a very negative impact on the environment, one of the main impacts on the environment is the actual process of extracting the coal from the ground. The two ways that coal is mined, underground and surface, both have different effects on the environment. The first way that coal is mined is by digging tunnels and creating mineshafts underground and then removing the coal from th...
Perhaps the most infamous American example of a coal mine fire is Centralia, a town in the anthracite region of eastern Pennsylvania. Centralia was like any other coal town until one fateful day in 1962, when a heap of burning trash in a dump that doubled as a mine stripping pit quickly spread to other parts of the mine. After a few months of bureaucratic haggling, the local government finally agreed to drill to suffocate the fire, but it had spread faster than had been anticipated and could not easily be contained. In the next few years, subsequent efforts to quell the fire proved futile while it expanded beyond the confines of the coal mine to other areas underneath people’s residences in the town of Centralia.
Acid mine drainage refers to water (leachate, drainage or seepage) that has come into contact with oxidised rocks or overburden that contains sulphide material (coal, zinc, copper, lead). (Keller, 2000; U.S.G.S.; U.S.E.P.A., 2002). A common sulphide is pyrite, or iron disulfide (FeS2), and throughout this essay it will be pyrite that will be the primary sulphide considered. Acid mine drainage is not a new phenomenon, early mining techniques utilized gravity to avoid water pooling, resulting in the water becoming polluted by acid, iron, sulphur and aluminium (U.S.E.P.A., 2002). It is most commonly associated with coal mining, especially with soft coal, coal that has high sulphur content. The pyrite that is present in coal seams will be accessible after surface mining when the overlying surfaces are removed or in deep mines that allow oxygen access to the previously inaccessible pyrite-containing coal (D.E.P. 1, 1997). After pyrite is exposed to air and water, sulphuric acid and iron hydroxide are formed, creating an acidic runoff (D.E.P. 1, 1997; 2 2002).
= == In this project I aim to explain the contributes to the environment by the actions of humans and display the consequences. I am going to divide the project into different sections and then sub sections to make the project easier to navigate around and keep the information in relevant sections. · Section 1: HABITAT REDUCTION BY HUMANS.
Deforestation affects our generation and if it is not stopped will have a major effect on the generations to come. If deforestation continues many plant and animal species will be wiped off forever. There are many benefactors to deforestation, like housing, logging, agriculture, corruption of governments, and economic situations. Many scientists believe that “at the rate we’re going we won’t have any forests in one hundred years. Not many organizations are helping deforestation.” So many things are affected by deforestation, and we need to do anything we can to keep our world alive.
There is powerful evidence showing that clearing tress not only spews carbon into the atmosphere, it also leads to major shifts such as increased temperatures and rainfall worldwide
Left behind are tailings, which are large piles of crushed rock left over when minerals have been extracted from rocks that once contained them. These tailings are then left prone to wind dispersion and water erosion. This wind dispersion occurs since the sand-like tailings are easily swept up by the atmosphere by wind and spread throughout the environment as dust particles. Figure 1 shows the wind erosion of a mine tailings pile being blow up into the air, creating dust. These tailings contain metal contaminants like arsenic, lead, and cadmium, which creates a problem for the environment and they can persist for decades due to the low pH levels and can cause problems in soil stabilization (arizona.edu, 2008).
Many people assume that the environment is not in danger. They believe that as technology advances, we do not need to worry about renewing natural resources, recycling, and finding new ways to produce energy. They state that one person in the world does not make a large difference. In reality, each individual's contribution greatly affects our environment. Our natural resources are slowly disappearing, and we must work together to save them and the Earth from ruin.